


Matins

by greenmtwoman



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Brienne's POV, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Morning After, lots of thoughts and feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:28:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25531354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenmtwoman/pseuds/greenmtwoman
Summary: "I told you once that we don't choose who we love.  I was wrong."
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Comments: 24
Kudos: 161





	Matins

**Author's Note:**

> There must be at least 1000 works here dealing with the Morning After, and no one needs to read the 1001st, but I needed to write it! It's my first time posting a fic. Now that it's out of my system and I'm tired of tinkering with it. maybe I can come up with ideas which are a bit more original. I'm awed by the amount of writing talent in this fandom; thank you all for giving me pleasure and inspiration! Comments, including critical ones, will be gratefully and humbly received!

**Matins**

She woke realizing that she needed the privy. That was her first thought. Then – it’s still dark? _Is it the middle of the night? No, it must be nearer dawn_. The fire was down to a glow, but she was warm, warmer than usual. She seemed to be naked. In fact, she was naked.

Oh, gods above! Warrior, Maiden, Mother…! Brienne shifted cautiously; she was indeed awake, not dreaming or lost in fantasy. No fantasy of hers had ever included a painfully full bladder. The man in her bed was still asleep, on his back, snoring softly. The candles had guttered out, but he looked peaceful, from what she could see in the ruddy light from the hearth. She inched carefully, carefully to the edge of the bed and sat up slowly. _Don’t wake up, Jaime. Don’t wake up._ She had no idea what she would say to him if he did. _And what would he say to me?_ Her bedrobe still hung on the hook where she had put it this morning. _Or was it yesterday morning? Before._ She slipped it on against the sudden chill. She knew how lucky she was to have a private chamber with a fireplace, windows, and even its own privy shaft behind a screen. Most of the survivors were in barracks, cellars, hallways, stables, and even tattered tents.

She wondered as she relieved herself where Jaime had been sleeping, and if his absence had been noticed. Reaching for a rag, she winced as she wiped between her legs. _A little sore and stinging, sticky, and was that a trace of blood?_ She couldn’t tell in the dimness. The floor was cold and gritty under her feet as she paused by the bedside. She could quietly dress and leave. _Am I craven now? I was bolder a few hours ago._ What could she do? Shirk her duties and hide in obscure corners of Winterfell so she wouldn’t have to meet Jaime’s eyes?

He had turned in his sleep and now lay on his side facing her portion of the bed. At least that had stopped the snoring. Brienne took a deep breath, neatly rehung the bedrobe and slid back into her place, leaving as much space as she could between them. The soreness was fading; in truth it wasn’t much, but it was… different. A reminder. She took another deep breath. She could think about this calmly, even though Tyrion’s stupid game had been humiliating, and she was still angry about it. After all they had been through, somehow, sometimes, she was still considered a joke. _Am I a jape to Jaime?_ She could hardly remember their absurd conversation after he had come to her room, but she remembered making a deliberate choice. _I was not so drunk as all that._

Hands pulling on his shirt, on hers… They would still be standing there if she had left it to him. In that moment she had known what she was doing. She was alive, and they were alive, and he was here, and he was Jaime, and she wanted him.

She’d never quite been able to imagine how it worked, kissing. She knew the dry, affectionate brush of her father’s lips on her forehead and cheek. She had felt a man’s kiss on her hand in greeting, the tribute to a lady, which always felt more like mockery. Owen Inchfield had just caught the corner of her mouth before she had knocked him into the fire. But the kiss of desire, which involved not just lips, but tongues and teeth and saliva, wouldn’t it be distasteful? Her imagination hadn’t been able to conjure it. The reality had been physical and visceral but also easier and more natural than she had anticipated. _My body knew better than my brain._

The same had been true of his hands and his mouth, touching her, making her forget that she was too big, too unwomanly, for this to be happening to her. She had never thought that she would be touched by any fingers except her own. She lay limp and gasping after her climax, knowing that she had been trying to say… What had she been trying to say? She was still technically a maid when he looked at her, his own breathing unsteady, and asked, “Are you sure?” She had nodded, knowing that her cheeks were red, forcing herself to meet his eyes before staring at his cock. This wasn’t like brief glimpses in camps, from which she had firmly averted her eyes. This was … intentional. “But … are you sure it will … fit?” She was mortified by own question, but it was, after all, considerably bigger than a finger.

She saw him try to repress a chuckle, which came out as a snort of laughter. He looked amused, tender, lustful – for her! – and also smug. Apparently she had just complimented him. “Oh, yes, I do believe so. We will be slow, as slow as you like. It will be good.” His fingers had danced gently between her legs again. _I was soft and swollen, aching and wet._ It had been was odd, after the first pain, to feel so filled. She had reached down and touched where they were joined, just to be sure, thinking that someday it might be very good indeed. _Someday? As if there will be a someday?_

So now she was no longer the Maid of Tarth. _Will it show on my face?_ She wondered who knew where Jaime was right now. Tyrion and Pod almost certainly. Pod wouldn’t speak of it, but she had no trust in Tyrion’s discretion. Tormund? If so, he was probably getting even drunker and moaning to anyone who would bother to listen. But surely they weren’t the only two to find the shelter of each other’s arms in the aftermath? Did anyone care? She had faced gossip before. She wouldn’t pretend that Sansa’s opinion didn’t matter to her, but ultimately what she cared about were the thoughts of the man beside her.

Jaime stirred and sighed, and his warm breath brushed the skin of her shoulder. He muttered something; in her dreams it would have been her name, but it was only a nonsense syllable.

How long had she loved him? Since Harrenhal? Since he gave her Oathkeeper? Since the queen had mockingly confronted her with the fact? He had taunted and insulted her. Bared his secrets to her. Fought her and fought a bear for her. Ridden north and battled the dead with her. He trusted her with his honor, and she loved him. _I am truly absurd._ Until now, her love had hardly hurt. It was a fact. She had expected nothing from it. The north was cold, the dead were coming and she loved Jaime Lannister. But now the world had changed its axis.

Soon he would awake. _Not yet, please._ She couldn’t imagine he would be as confused as she was, but what would he think? _Will he regret finding himself in my bed?_ She had been secure in his respect and regard, but this was different. Just how much had he drunk? Enough for a certain recklessness. She had wrapped her arms and legs around him with all her strength (and her strength was considerable), and he hadn’t even tried to withdraw from her. She had felt so powerful in the giving of pleasure as he gasped and shuddered; not wanting to let him go, not ever to let him go. _And that is another matter…_

She found it difficult to imagine approaching Maester Wolkan, who had served Ramsay Bolton, even if he had done so reluctantly. Then there was Jon’s friend Sam who had not forged even a single link of his chain. They were doing their best with the needs of the wounded, and Sansa had assigned them helpers, but there were so many still in pain and even still dying. How could she pick her way among them with a request for moon tea? Did moon tea stop a babe before it started, or end it afterward? She felt ignorant; her septa hadn’t discussed such matters. It was the duty of a lady to give her lord heirs, not to prevent them. There were surely women about who would know what she should do, but she could hardly ask at random.

And if she didn’t ask? Unlikely? Possible? Certainly not probable, after only one night? But Tarth needed an heir. _A Lannister bastard wasn’t what my father had in mind._ Bastards could be legitimized. By the monarch. By the king. By the queen. But Westeros had a king and two queens; a northern king with no power in the Stormlands, and queens who both had reason to hate Jaime and little reason to love her either.

She shifted and the scent of them was all around her, trapped in the covers, earthy, both familiar and new. The known scent of her own body was mixed with something darker and sharper. She liked it. It was him and her together. _The smell of our mating. Our fucking._ Even the thought made her blush, but it fit. They were more than their bodies, but their bodies had done this. It wasn’t just a romantic matter of their minds and spirits. Ridiculous to blush at a word when no one could see her, not even Jaime. She closed her eyes. There was no point in keeping them open in the dark.

The next time she woke she was actually hot, all but the end of her nose. Jaime had turned again; a leg was lying across hers and his left hand rested loosely on her breast. His stump was tucked under her back, and her hand was on his hip. _I can’t move and I don’t want to think._ It was much better to sleep again.

Daylight came late in the winter, but its arrival was inevitable. She was alone in the bed, the covers on the other side pushed untidily back. For a moment she thought the room was empty. _That's a way of avoiding conversation._ But there was another log on the fire, and last night’s discarded clothes had been picked off the floor and tossed carelessly on a chair. The light glinted off a golden hand on the table. Then Jaime stepped out from behind the screen, running a hand through his hair. He went to the basin, splashed water clumsily on his face with one hand, yawned, stretched and looked at her. She knew she was red, but she lifted her chin slightly and looked steadily back. _I can do this. I will not duck my head beneath the covers._ “Out of the mist,” she remembered, “naked as his nameday, looking half a corpse and half a god.” Now he was neither, but he was still an amazement to her. Scarred and bruised, lined and graying. Probably no longer the most beautiful man in Westeros, but still the most beautiful man she had ever seen. As she remained silent, his expression changed from something approaching smugness to an odd uncertainty.

“Brienne. Are you… well?” he asked.

Yes… Jaime.” His name felt strange in her mouth under these strange circumstances.

“I’m glad to hear it.” He crossed to her and the bed sank slightly under his weight as he sat. “But I’m at a disadvantage here, I feel. Come, if I can bear the feel of this northern air, you can as well. Let me see you.” He tugged the fur down as she tried to maintain her grip on it. It was daylight now. His face was soft, but…

“You once said that I was even uglier in daylight.”

He flinched. “I once said many things that were both cruel and untrue.”

“Cruel, yes, but not necessarily untrue.” She looked away from him.

“Yes, untrue! Brienne. Ser Brienne. I have something to say to you, and I refuse to say it while you are hiding from me. You’re braver than this.” He gently turned her face to his.

Stung, she pushed and kicked the covers aside. “Have I ever given you cause to doubt my courage – Ser?”

His eyes travelled deliberately from her untidy hair to her long toes and they were gentle and amused. He touched the scars the bear had left, the bruise on her collarbone, the one that colored an arm from shoulder to elbow and another that spread across her ribs. He caressed the scar on her thigh left by his own sword years before. “Not at all. So. Now that we are equally as the gods made us… You are my knight, and also my lady. Marry me.”

“What?”

“You heard me. As last night I heard you.” He raised his eyebrows.

“What?”

“You said that you love me.”

“What!”

“Wench, you’re repeating yourself.”

“I didn’t.” Her defensive reply was automatic. _I don’t remember what I said. Why must I blush so easily?_

“Are you denying it? I also recollect you that you babbled ‘yes’ and ‘please’ and ‘Jaime’ and called upon the gods.” Now he was grinning. “Are you calling me a liar?”

“…No.”

“Then the matter is simple. You love me. I love you. I’ve taken your maidenhead. We should marry.”

“You don’t love me.” _He can’t._

“You’re ridiculously stubborn. I say that I do.”

She sat up and pulled her knees defensively to her chest. “You love your sister. I’ve always known that.” _Let him try to deny it._

His smile vanished. There was something thick and painful in his silence. They had never discussed Cersei, but she had heard him confess the truth to Lady Catelyn, and she had heard the whispers often enough. “Kingslayer,” they muttered first, but “sisterfucker” was never far behind.

“Why are you making this so difficult?”

“Why did you think it would be easy?”

His jaw was tight. “Yes, then! Yes, I love her! From the moment we were born, we’ve been together. But she’s become a monster. I’ve told her that she’s a hateful woman. When I’m with her, I’m a hateful man.”

“You’re not…”

“And that is the difference! You know the worst of me, and you still say you see good in me. You call me a man of honor. When I’m with you, I can be the man I want to be.” There was desperation in his face, and anger, but she didn’t think it was aimed at her. He sprang up and went to the hearth, resting his bent head against the mantelshelf. “I told you once that we don’t choose who we love. I was wrong. I can choose, and I choose you.”

“Jaime…” She uncoiled herself, shivering, and went to him. She slid her arms around his waist and rested her head on the back of his shoulder. It seemed that she was still his protector. “She wasn’t here last night, was she? Not in this room. Not in… our… bed.”

“Gods, no!” He turned, and now his head was buried against her neck. “I told you. I chose, and I’m choosing again. Life over death. Sunlight over shadows. Truth over secrets. You over her. I’ve been so tired, for so long. And so afraid.” He gave a convulsive shiver.

“It’s cold. Come back to bed.” She tugged him back to where the covers still held their residual heat.

He gave a choked snort. “Practical wench. Always saving me when I get dramatic.” He flopped onto the bed and pulled her down beside him.

“Wench? Still? My name…”

“Is Brienne. Also sword wench. Also blue-eyed wench. Tall wench. Stubborn wench. Brave wench. Wench of Tarth. Freckled wench. Soft wench.” He lifted her arm and pressed a kiss into the crook of her elbow. “Honorable wench. Wench with long legs. Sapphire wench. Irritating wench. Innocent wench. Oathkeeping wench. My well-loved wench. Do you hear me call any other woman wench?”

“No.”

“You never will. Because you are my only wench, and no one else can call you by that name.” Suddenly he laughed. “A lesson I taught Connington.”

“Ronnet Connington?”

“He referred to you as a wench.”

“I was betrothed to him.” _He gave me a rose, and turned it into an insult._ “It didn’t end well. At least not until I knocked him down in the melee at Bitterbridge.”

He spoke of the betrothal, but not of Bitterbridge.” Jaime laced his fingers through hers. “I wonder why not?” He grinned and turned to face her. “I hit him in the face, knocked him down a flight of steps and deprived him of several teeth. It’s the most use that,” he gestured at the golden hand on the table, “has ever been.”

“You didn’t!”

“I did. Then I sent him off to Duskendale to keep him out of my sight. You’re my wench, never his. No one else is allowed to insult you.”

“Because you don’t mean it.” _So obvious. Why haven’t I been able to see that?_

“Once I did. Not for a long time.”

She searched his face with her eyes and then with her fingers. Eyebrows, cheekbones, the bump on his nose, his jaw, his mouth. “Because you love me. You do.”

“ Yes.” He kissed her gently and extended his arms, looking from stump to fingers. “Do you know that even with one hand, I can still use my fingers to count the decisions I’ve made that are truly mine?” He ticked them off. “Aerys. The bear pit. Giving you Oathkeeper. Freeing my brother. Riding north. Loving you.”

“Jaime, you can’t count! That’s six.”

“Then we’ll count my right arm as one. I always was the stupidest Lannister.”

“Cersei told you that, didn’t she?” What she felt now was no longer jealousy, but cleansing rage. “She isn’t worth the mud on your boots.”

“Brienne… come closer. Hold me.” When their foreheads were pressed together, her feet reached below his. “I choose again… No matter what the news is. I won’t go south. I can’t save her. I don’t want to save her.”

“But you won’t fight against her, either.”

“No. I hate the fucking North. Do you think the fucking North will have me?”

“I trust you. I think that Bran trusts you. Sansa doesn’t, and she’s the Lady of Winterfell.”

“ She trusts you.”

“Maybe that will be enough. I don’t know. Sansa has learned horrible lessons about trusting.”

“Does this mean that you’re giving me an answer?”

“You haven’t asked me a question.”

“Of course I did!”

“No. You gave me an order, Ser Jaime. ‘Marry me,” you said. I’d remind you that here in Winterfell, you are under my command.”

His expression was lightening and softening. “Will you command me, then?”

“In this… I would prefer that neither of us command. But asking? We can do that. We can ask.” Her blue eyes looked steadily into his green ones.

Two voices spoke at the same moment. “Will you marry me?”

Two voices answered. “Yes.”

**Author's Note:**

> Matins is the liturgical period between about 3 a.m. and dawn. I left Cersei's pregnancy out of this, because I don't believe it. I used GRRM's technique of putting character's thoughts in italics. Hope it worked. Thank you for reading!


End file.
